Ok, the V12 crankshaft has come to 698.8mm, with 4 main bearings. There is no definition of counter-balancing elements right now, and the default crank will be quite heavy at first. The idea is, as I said, to get a working unit, and refine it over time.

Block should be ready later today. I've all but settled on a V4 to test.

Block should be ready later today. I've all but settled on a V4 to test.

Which makes sense. Test the unit with the fewest cylinders to keep work loads down and then IF it works as you like you can always build one with more cylinders when you have it as you like it.

How about a twin to begin?

I was originally thinking a twin, but after careful thought it struck me that the twin would have too many differences from the main design to be as good a test as the V4 would be. The bearings (which, incidentally, I am designing it to use the same bearings you'd find on the 426 Hemi, in order to add plenty of margin for strength) have to support two rod throws each, four pistons. A v-twin would only have two, which means you'd still not know if the crankshaft is strong enough because it would have half of the number of pistons per bearing. The dry sump oil pump is tied to the crankshaft as well, with the number of collectors being tied to the number of rod-throws. But with a v-twin, you'd have to design a different oil pump arrangement, not enough throws. With the V-twin and V4 you'd still need a balance shaft, so no advantage to the twin there. I just cannot find a real advantage to the twin beyond needing 35% less metal to make it.

Ok, taken some time to study balancing for the V4. Because of how the oil pump is being arranged, I can combine that pump with the balance shaft I think, which should allow some weight savings.

But now am looking at how to connect it to the rest of the world, the transmission. In the open source world there exists already a Honda B-engine transmission mount that would be quick and cheap to adapt, but it would not fit quite right (it is very obviously for an inline-engine). Alternatively, I also have both a Nissan 71C transmission here and have access to a Type 2 VW transaxle. Or I could make a custom mount and push a custom transmission later on (which if I did would be using a chain drive and not gears, fan of the Nash chaingang transmission).

Yup, that's it. Although, not talking the whole rear-end drive system like on the Nash, just that the use of chains over gears for most 'gears' save Reverse, which would use a normal gear setup. Chain drive transmissions in my experience are a lot less painful to repair, and cheaper to build. Off the shelf motorcycle drive gears should do, attached to dog engagement gears.

I hope I didn't mention this one before. Anyway its worth to share, I can see big advantages in cost power & reliability with this example and it sure has still been a good amount of work to do and makes the owner proud with large parts of it being homemade.

I've had one rough year, but have not forgotten about this. I've been working on the aircooled jugs some more, and hit upon a novel solution to the lubrication issue I was running into. With the fork-in-blade design, lubricating the piston was turning into a problem. Difficult to align the lubrication holes in the crankshaft, and the casting for the shaft was more difficult due to the lubrication channels.

Then a bit of serendipity struck, and I'd found my old Suzuki GT380 manual (long lost the bike). The GT380 was an interesting engine in that instead of feeding lubricant through the crankshaft, it used direct oil injectors inside the engine cylinders themselves. I could accomplish this because the pistons were just a bit longer than the stroke of the engine. So, I looked at the pistons I'd designed, and if I extended them by 2mm, they'd also fit the same bill. Simplifies the casting of the crankshaft, while retaining strength.

Im planning a v4 with some stock parts. the only custom parts will be a welded mild steel crankcase, cylinder barrels, cylinder head and crankshaft. its an air cooled 90 degree v4. miller cycle. the rotating assembly will be similiar to the ducati desmo v4. OHV with 2 camshafts positioned in a way so the pushrods are on the bottom and very short.

the valve timing will be early intake valve closing. the intake will have 7:1 compression ratio and the power stroke will have 20:1 expansion ratio. its going to use a vgt. from a diesel its very common and cheap nowadays.

i might be able to prototype a 2 cylinder with vestigial lever mounted bobweights on the other. its cheaper and not much different from the v4. the firing pulses will not be even but i thing a proper torsional vibration absorber can smooth it out.

A low cost torsional vibration testing system needs to be built from nano mechanical sensors available off the shelf nowadays. if the torsionals cant be tamed then an open source engine is not possible at all.

I've been working on the aircooled jugs some more, and hit upon a novel solution to the lubrication issue I was running into. With the fork-in-blade design, lubricating the piston was turning into a problem. Difficult to align the lubrication holes in the crankshaft, and the casting for the shaft was more difficult due to the lubrication channels.

Then a bit of serendipity struck, and I'd found my old Suzuki GT380 manual (long lost the bike). The GT380 was an interesting engine in that instead of feeding lubricant through the crankshaft, it used direct oil injectors inside the engine cylinders themselves. I could accomplish this because the pistons were just a bit longer than the stroke of the engine. So, I looked at the pistons I'd designed, and if I extended them by 2mm, they'd also fit the same bill. Simplifies the casting of the crankshaft, while retaining strength.

yes, it did, just like the GT250, GT550 and GT750, but those bikes were all 2 strokes. the oil injection went into the crancase to lubricate the pressed-together roller crankshafts as well as the piston skirts.

in a 4-stroke, you still have to run oil thru the crankshaft to lubricate the main and rod journals, as long as you're using plain bearings. If you want to look at 4-strokes with roller cranks, study the japanese 4-cylinder 4-strokes from the 1970s. roller bearing cranks are fine up to a point, but they aren't as torsionally strong as even cast single piece plain bearing cranks, for a given journal diameter.

Here's an interesting future possibility. A university in Oz has improved the process of making stainless magnesium (no, that's not a typo) for castings and cast a 2.5L V6 engine block as an example. In the article below there is no mention of what became of this casting. That is, did they make the complete engine, etc.? However, if you imagine that the process become perfected and cost effective, it will make for some interesting future, specialist engines such a race cars and motorcycles, don't you think?

I actually had not forgotten about this, just had real life suck up my time. Then, my Mountaineer's transmission lost the direct drive clutch. In pondering options, it struck me that I still have the transmission side of my ideas sitting around, so I've begun checking with various shops nearby to see about getting the parts needed. I'll still need to cast the cone clutch for it, and to find someone to reprogram the ECU to not look for the old automatic. Also went back to the crankshaft lubrication method after a friend of mine showed me a Rolls Royce phantom piston rod which addressed the very issue I had run into.

Right now, for the liquid cooled approach, the idea is to use iron or steel cylinder sleeves, then to braze steel tube bent into a coil to it using silver braze. While not as high temperature as bronze brazing, silver has a unique advantage: its expansion is near identical with iron/steel. The RL-10 rocket engine used on the upper stages of the Atlas and Delta uses silver brazing for its cooling system for this very reason. (hand brazing over 1000 hand-formed 1/4" tubes, just imagine)

Been hunting for a piston rod picture, but it seems that few of the original rods still exist, having been replaced years ago. But, I found one, from an auction house in the UK. As you can see, instead of drilling a channel for lubrication (something I would be wary of due to the lower-than-perfect standards of your typical garage machine shop) they connected a tube to the rod for lubrication. This is less precise, meaning easier for the DIY'er to handle while minimizing the risk of compromising the strength of the piston rod.

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